Oostwestthuisbest Blog

Misplaced priorities

A young man from Maryland for killing three people by driving 115 mph towards an intersection where a car pulled out.

He had a prior conviction for bad driving, but it was lost in a sea of hundreds of thousands of minor offenses.

In Maryland, running a stop sign and crashing into somebody is a lesser offense than 85 in a 55. It’s the same as getting caught going with the flow of traffic. And Maryland’s computers are full of “reckless driving” violations from Virginia. In Virginia “reckless driving” means 81 in a 70 zone, failing to signal a lane change, or attempting a zipper merge.

What do you do with a million points for trivial offenses? Assume that every conviction in the DMV computer is for something trivial, and only suspend licenses when the law requires suspension. Realistically, that’s the only way to interpret the records.

The press coverage says to me his priors were not ordinary violations but he had good lawyers. When the lawyers were done his record said minor speeding and negligent driving, which counts the same as a minor speeding ticket. If you think that’s actionable you have to first take the keys away from everybody who commits the more serious offense of going 85 on the Interstate without rich parents.

So here’s a guy whose record looks normal and he goes out and kills three people, and it might have been prevented if states weren’t so determined to turn every driver into a criminal.

It could also be prevented if we spent less time thinking about right and wrong and more time trying not to crash.

The victim saw far-off headlights and pulled out from a median crossover. The rocket pilot saw the car pull out 800 feet ahead and flashed his lights. My road.

A car can stop in . But spending a couple seconds messaging left too little time.

He wasted his chance, hit the brakes with 350 feet to go, and crashed still going 75.

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